Noah Shaefer

About Noah

Noah Shaefer is a fifth-year mechanical engineering major at the University of Cincinnati.  He is graduating in May of 2019.  Noah and his teammates are working on the Scooter Lift Challenge for a Vietnam Veteran who is legally blind and has mobility issues.  The goal of the Challenge is to build a device that will allow the Veteran to lift his scooter vehicle rack system, move it to his truck, and attach it to the hitch.

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Why did you choose your major? I have always enjoyed learning about how things worked. Anything from big machines to small gadgets, I wanted to know what goes into making them function. This drive to understand everything around me led me to engineering and my interest in machines led me to mechanical engineering specifically.

‍Describe your experience working with QL+ so far.  What is the biggest challenge?  What has been rewarding?  QL+ has been wonderful to work with! They’ve been so willing to help us in any way they can, have offered us various resources and have made our work as easy on us as they can.

I would say our biggest challenge is also a great benefit: our project is very open-ended. There are few constraints on our project, so we can almost go in any direction with it. While this is something of an ideal scenario, it can also be somewhat stressful since we have to weigh many different possible solutions to determine which one is the best for our needs.

Being able to meet the person we’re helping has been very rewarding. One of the main reasons I decided to work with QL+ is that I had the chance to meet the person our project would be helping. I knew our project would have an immediate impact on someone’s life. Even more than that, we had the opportunity to help a veteran, someone who has risked their life to protect our country. Working on this project to help him is the least I can do when he has risked so much for all of us.

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What would you say to other students about QL+? To any students who are considering working with QL+: do it. The people at QL+ are kind and want to help you succeed with your project in any way they can. You get to create something that will immediately improve someone’s life. You get to meet the person you are helping. You get to show your respect and gratitude to a veteran by creating something to help them in daily life. Any one of these points is a great reason to work with a company. With QL+, all of these points are true.

‍What are your plans after graduation? After graduation, I will be working as a Product Design Engineer with R.A Jones in Covington, KY, where I worked for all 5 of my co-op semesters.

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What has been the proudest moment of your college career? The proudest moment of my college career was when I was offered a co-op position with R.A Jones. I thought the work the company did was very interesting, and I really wanted to work there. In addition to that, my grandpa retired from R.A Jones back in ’99, and I knew he was excited that I might work there as well. So when I received the call saying that they would like to hire me as a co-op, I was ecstatic!

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What three words best describe you? Caring, Smart, Faith-filled